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In the News: James Ellroy and David Fincher to make Noir Drama

The series will be based on the life of a celebrated Hollywood private eye

Director David Fincher (Gone Girl, Se7en, Fight Club) has signed up for an HBO noir drama series together with L.A. Confidential writer James Ellroy.

Shakedown is set in the seedy underworld of 1950s Los Angeles and is inspired by the life of legendary Hollywood vice cop-turned-private eye Fred Otash, but is not an adaptation of Ellroy’s 2012 novella with the same name, Deadline Hollywood reports.

Fincher, who was last involved in television as the director and executive producer of House of Cards, is seemingly moving his energy away from the silver screen. He is currently developing another HBO drama, adapted from the British series Utopia. That project will be written by Gillian Flynn, who wrote the book on which Gone Girl was based.

The Oscar-nominated filmmaker is also going to direct the pilot episode of Living on Noise, the working title of a half-hour HBO project about the world of 1980s music videos, reports The Wrap. Fincher will be able to draw on his own experiences here, since he worked on music videos for both George Michael and Madonna in the late 1980s and early 1990s.